


A great place for architects and dilettantes

by thought



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 10:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4825052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a storm in Armonia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A great place for architects and dilettantes

Carolina wakes to the familiar drumming of rain against the window and a gentle throbbing in her head to match. She swims up through soupy layers of consciousness with clumsy, half-hearted strokes, emerging to the dim grey twilight of early morning leaking across the blankets she's wrapped herself in. The air in the bedroom is icy cold and it burns her throat on the way down. She can hear the rustle of movement on the other side of the room, and as it comes closer she can pick out Vanessa, already dressed and just zipping her jacket. Carolina sits up and the world spins a little. Vanessa comes closer, the scent of strong coffee rich over cheap soap and the ever-present damp.

"Go back to sleep," she says quietly.

Carolina pulls an arm out from the blankets to rub her eyes. "What's going on?"

"Power outages," Vanessa says. "A storm came in over night, most of downtown has gone dark. I'm going in, but there isn't a lot anyone can do until everything comes back online. We don't have many people who know how to handle the city grid."

Carolina shakes her head. "I'll go with you." She sucks in a breath and starts coughing on the exhale.

Vanessa comes closer. "there's nothing to do. Stay here and get some rest."

Carolina looks at the clock on the bedside table. "It's late," she says, startled. "You should've woken me."

Vanessa presses a hand against Carolina's forehead. Her skin is cool. "You've been coughing all night."

"I'm fine," Carolina says automatically. She feels strangely vulnerable, huddled under blankets and still fighting off sleep while Vanessa stands close, fully dressed and on the verge of leaving. It feels like something she should hate. She realizes too late that she's leaned her face into Vanessa's palm. It isn't the act itself that has her pulling back, but the instinctual nature of it, the way she leans toward Vanessa like second nature, like the safety can go unquestioned.

"You're temperature's higher than usual," Vanessa says. "I promise I'll call you if anything comes up."

She rests a hand against Carolina's shoulder and pushes her gently back down onto the bed. Carolina goes, unprotesting. Vanessa pulls the blankets over her shoulders and combs her fingers briefly through Carolina's hair before she steps away.

Carolina drifts for what feels like only a few minutes, mind and body struggling against each other in the fight for consciousness. Sweat sticks the sheets to her legs and every breath she takes feels like tiny blades slicing the inside of her throat. When she wakes up again it's still dark outside, but there are flashes of sheet lightning blanking out the window in brilliant white. Without the background hum of electricity the sound of the rain seems amplified. She gets up carefully. The unfamiliar chill in the air feels good against her overheated skin.

There's still running water, and Carolina stands under the tepid stream of the shower and shivers determinedly. The remaining coffee is equally cold and stale, but she needs the caffeine more than she cares about the taste. The clock tells her it's nearing eleven o'clock, but the sky out the windows is still twilight dark. She dresses in layers, Vanessa's hoodie under one of the cheap disposable raincoats.

She stands at the foot of the stairs, just inside the doors of the apartment building and stairs darkly out at the downpour.

"Stop," she mutters, resignedly. The rain does not listen.

Vanessa's taken the truck, so Carolina spends ten minutes standing at the nearest rideshare point while the rain drenches her and she tries fiercely not to cough. When a car finally stops, there's a tiny Fed flag in the window, but Carolina gets in anyway. The kid driving can't be more than eighteen, but when they lift their left arm to change the windshield wiper settings their sleeve falls back to reveal the scratched plastic of a low-grade prosthesis. The man in the passenger seat is somehow immaculate in a suit and tie, and he spends most of the ride speaking rapidly to someone on the screen of his datapad. Carolina stays huddled down in her seat and counts the flashes of lightning.

She gets dropped off a couple blocks away from the New Republic HQ. The streets are mostly deserted but for the occasional vehicle sloshing past, buildings already damaged in the fighting made starkly alien and grotesque in the brief flashes of lightning. When she steps inside the building is similarly abandoned, and she stands dripping on the tiles in the centre of the atrium in an eery silence.

She passes Tucker on the third floor on her way to Kimball's office. Dim strip lighting glows on the ceiling, so obviously someone's managed to get a generator working. Tucker's in full armour but appears perfectly dry. Carolina's damp footprints trail behind her on the thin carpet.

"Wow," he says. "You look like shit."

Carolina glares. Water trickles down her cheek from the tangled mess of her hair, and the sleeves of Vanessa's hoodie hang too long over her hands. Breathing is making her want to throw up. "And you look ready for action. What's going on?"

Tucker makes a sound like laughter. "The Feds have sent out soldiers to patrol the city. For the safety of the citizens."

"They think Charon's going to use this as an excuse to strike?"

Tucker says, "It's amazing how you and I both grew up on Earth but still come from totally different planets." He walks away. She can hear the rhythmic beat of his footsteps long after he's disappeared from sight.

Vanessa's standing at the window when Carolina comes into her office.

"The storms were never this bad when I was young," she says, without turning around. "They've been getting exponentially worse over the past ten years. There were a lot of researchers trying to figure out the cause."

Carolina steps up behind her, just to the left so she's still visible in Vanessa's periphery. "Maybe they still will."

"No," Vanessa says. Carolina waits, but she doesn't explain further. "Indra is angry," she mutters, then laughs sardonically under her breath.

"Maybe it's aliens," Carolina offers, half-serious.

Vanessa ignores her, but she hears a slight hitch in her breathing and for the first time Carolina wonders if Vanessa is facing away to hide tears. "There aren't even that many generators working," Vanessa says. Her voice remains even. "We've lost contact with our satellites. There could be a ship right above us in orbit getting ready to drop hundreds of troops down and we'd have no idea."

"Tucker said Doyle's people are out on patrol."

Vanessa presses a hand against the glass, swipes streaky lines through the condensation. "Doyle's men are out there to protect the good citizens of armonia from any New Republic "terrorists" who want to take advantage of the storm to loot shops or sabotage vehicles or plant bombs or... whatever they expect us to do. There used to be an electronic surveillance network across the city, but now I guess The Feds have to do it the old fashioned way."

"That sort of equipment should be running on independent power sources," Carolina says.

"It was. We destroyed them, and most of the monitoring equipment. About two years back, I think."

Carolina coughs for a long time, and when she's finished she decides the floor seems like a nice place to sit. Vanessa finally turns, crouching down beside her.

"I thought you agreed to stay home and rest," she says, rubbing slow circles on Carolina's back.

"I'm fine," Carolina says, forcing back another cough.

"I think you mean something different when you say that," Vanessa says, and she sounds suddenly very tired. Carolina leans into her, forehead slowly descending to her shoulder.

"It sounds like The Feds have reason to take precautions," Carolina mumbles.

Vanessa exhales slowly. "It's never been about senseless violence," she says. "We don't want to damage our home any more than they do. Less, if you think about the mines."

Carolina shivers, hard. The floor feels like it's slowly tilting sideways. Vanessa wraps her arm around Carolina's shoulders and pulls her closer. "Why did you come in, Carolina? I promise The New Republic can do without you for a day."

Carolina can feel the head ache starting behind her eyes. Outside the wind gusts a volley of rain against the window. Carolina has run missions under worse conditions than this. The weather, her body. Either. Both. She curls closer until she's half in Vanessa's lap.

"It's not The New Republic that has my loyalty," she says, and then thinks that was not quite what she'd intended to say.

"I know," says Vanessa, tonelessly. Carolina wonders if she's made things better or worse.


End file.
